Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/496780
194 CULTURED If you ever find yourself waxing cynical about the future of architecture, spend 10 minutes with Marc Kushner, arguably the industry's biggest cheerleader—and one crazy-busy guy. In addition to co-running HWKN, his New York–based firm, and bringing together the world's architecture on his website, Architizer.com, he just wrote a book. "The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings" encapsulates Kushner's mission: to reconnect the general public with buildings, both around the corner and around the world. "I'm always connecting back to the idea that every single person is touched by architecture throughout his or her life." Increasingly, he's thinking about how much social media is changing the profession—a force for good in his opinion. "It gives voice and a platform to an innate sensibility that the public has, which is that they want innovation in architecture, the same way they want innovation in their cellphones." He says people that build buildings are afraid of such innovation because it's expensive. But now they're able to tap in and hear the public clamoring for newness, and that it would be a mistake to maintain the status quo. "Real estate developers realize they'll get a higher price per square foot if they innovate," says Kushner. In his mind, the moment everything changed was when Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao appeared in 1997. Almost universally praised by critics and the public alike, it gave rise to the idea of the starchitect. "It's up to debate if they used their power wisely—turning their very thoughtful architecture into a brand or a style. But it cracked the door open so that these people became household words. And that gave the public the ability to make the leap and say, 'I want something that good in my town.'" Paradoxically, he views this global exposure resulting in a sort of hyper-localism, the end of "McMansion" sameness, which results in duplicate-style buildings in Texas and in New Jersey. "They shouldn't be the same. There are different materials available, different local customs and different ways people live. The public is craving individuality." He sees the same thing occurring that's been seen in the food and crafts revolution, where "you go to Brooklyn to get that chocolate that's made there." That doesn't necessarily mean everything will become more and more slick, or the creation of a super-mod world. The future could include, for instance, more shingle houses in the Hamptons. "We'll just start to rethink how we apply shingles and what they can do. Can they actually be solar panels? Can they actually capture wind energy? Maybe there's a different way to make a window using shingles. And that gets super exciting for an architect." WEST 57TH New York, NY BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group Instead of trying to out-skyscraper the next guy, which has been the game in New York City for the last 100 years, the architect calls this the "Court Scraper." It's a hybrid between the European idea of surrounding an interior court and a typical skyscraper. We're living in an era where developers realize it's not the highest,but the smartest that's going to win. That makes me pretty optimistic.